LUCIENNE O’MARA
The beginning of each painting at the moment starts with the painting made before it. There will be a small area of paint or a combination of two marks that I want to explore more and so that leads me into the next painting. I’ve also used text in some pieces and that will start with a sentence or a description of something that I then try to create with paint.
“I’m interested in the way we accept the visual tricks that painting allows, like seeing space and depth on a flat surface. The thought that one thing can be two polar things at the same time feels very relevant politically.”
Research is very important to my practice, I spend a huge amount of time looking, thinking and planning, and then the process of making the piece is usually very urgent and fast, like I’m trying to catch it before it disappears again. My studio tends to have lots of pieces of things lying around, painted bits of wood and canvas that will eventually become part of something else, so everything is intertwined and part of an ongoing process.
I work with oil paint either on canvas or on wood. I like to use found wood that has marks on it that show its history. I tend to use very impasto paint, texture and surface are hugely important to my work. Sometimes the surface is so thick and layered the painting becomes an object, they can become quite sculptural. The work I’m currently making uses a huge amount of oil paint with a medium that gives it bulk but also kind of flattens it, which creates a contrast between showing depth in layers of colour but also making you very aware of the surface.
Over the last few years I’ve collected a huge amount of source material photos on my phone and created a kind of database where they are all logged into groups so I can reference them and find them easily. The criteria of how they have been grouped wouldn’t make any sense to anyone else, it’s things like a certain type of feeling or texture or way of working. The photos are of anything from old paintings to a combination of colours on a wall I walked past or a piece of wood. Once a photo has been added to one of the collections it becomes removed from its source and feels like it lives in a world that’s just been made for me to dip into and find something to spark a beginning of a painting.
Lucienne O'Mara lives and works in London. She completed her BA and MA in Fine Art at City & Guilds London where she received the Painter Stainer's Prize and the Tony Carter Award. She is currently taking part in the Turps Banana Studio Programme.
